


Angel of Days

by Flux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 10, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demon Dean Winchester, Gen, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 10:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3116006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flux/pseuds/Flux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The upheaval of Heaven has created a power vacuum that the pagan gods are eager to fill.  One of the first names on their laundry list?  Castiel, who's slowly dying from his stolen Grace and desperately searching for Dean.</p><p>AU from the beginning of S10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel of Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [takadainmate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takadainmate/gifts).



> For prompt 2:  
> Something involving other gods or mythologies interacting and interfering, especially if there's a history there of some long held grudge or hatred that leads to someone hurting Cas. Dean and Sam try to help, but it's almost impossible where Cas is cagey and they're up against powerful, and angry, beings.
> 
> I'm sorry if this isn't exactly what you wanted. I hope you enjoy it anyways!

_Hesse, Germany_

 

It is an unexceptional Thursday afternoon on the cusp of summer and fall.  A man walks down a sidewalk.  He is tall and broad with carrot-red hair and a thick beard.  No one notices him.  Behind him, in the oldest part of town, a church burns.

 

* * *

 

 

_Paradise, Utah_

 

“What do you think you’re doing?  I’m the King of Hell!”

Dean holds the First Blade by his finger tips, letting the jaw bone swing through the air just inches above Crowley’s face.  He has one foot planted on the demon’s chest, holding him down against the rocky ground, like a big, fleshy cockroach. 

“Well, we aren’t in Hell, are we?" he says.  "Last I checked, we were in _Paradise_!”  Dean sweeps his arms up towards the clear blue sky stretching above them, not a cloud in sight.  Beneath him, Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Did you really drag me two hundred miles to the middle of bloody nowhere for a pun?”

Dean shrugs and palms the blade more firmly.  “Nah, but it was on the way, so why the hell not?  I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Really,” Crowley scoffs.  “You thought I, me, would appreciate being _stabbed in the back_ on the side of a road in a piss-poor excuse of a town in Utah?”

“Oh,” Dean says.  “I haven’t stabbed you in the back.”  Dean runs the Blade down the satiny sleeve of Crowley’s suit to the sweaty palm of his hand.  His fingers go conspicuously still as Dean drags the bone along the crease running from wrist to thumb, the life line.  He grins.

“I thought I’d start with your fingers.”

Crowley’s scream is music singing through the air.  They're two hundred feet deep in a cornfield with stalks that wave high overhead on a football Sunday.  No one will hear them.  No one is coming for them.  And even if someone did, there's nothing they can do against a Knight of Hell.  Dean has plenty of time to work.  He looks back down at the wide panicked eyes that flash from brown to red to brown again.

“I’ll save your back for later.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Lincoln, Illinois_

 

Castiel aches.

He's no stranger to pain.  He first learned the sensation when Lucifer dared to defy their Father.  Every angel suffered the rending loss of his Fall, felt the agony of his absence.  They all learned the consequences of disobedience that day.  Since then, he has experienced many different types of pain - of blade and battle, of fire and damnation, of re-education.  And then there are the human forms of pain - an empty stomach, a bleeding palm, a blistered heel.  This ache, though, is new.

His human brain can tell that something is wrong but cannot comprehend the source of his malaise.  In turns, his body shivers and sweats, coughs and wheezes, and all along the ache, diffuse and impalpable.  There is no wound to tend, no parasite to kill, no poison to expel.  He is losing the very essence of his existence.  In a last, futile attempt at recovery, his vessel sleeps and this time, he dreams.

The woods are choked with fog and dead silence hangs between the trees.  Crushed leaves and small twigs gather between his toes.  There's no sun in the sky and he's reminded of Purgatory.  But no.  The leaves are too green and white star blossoms of wood anemone peek out from behind the tree trunks.  And there's no persistent itch of being watched.

He hears the fire before he sees it, a lone, crackling spark of light in the mist, drawing him forward like an unwary moth.  He goes.  The space here can’t be called a clearing, not when the spruces are so sparse, but a space here there is.  In the middle, a fire calls, warm and beckoning.  Castiel hadn't even realized he was cold.  Next to the fire is a man dressed in a thick gray cable-knit sweater, ears tucked under the rim of a woolen cap, and hands wrapped in fingerless gloves.  He turns a leg of some animal on a spit over the open flame and the smell of cooking meat fills the air.

“Goat,” the stranger says, glancing up at Castiel before turning back to tend his meal.  “You may have some when it’s ready, if you like.”

There are two thick logs set around the fire pit, too deliberately placed to be a natural occurrence.  Castiel takes a seat on the one across from the man and watches as he bastes the leg with some liquid, the fire hissing as it drips onto the coals.  The man gives it one last turn before taking his own seat, fixing Castiel with a bemused stare.

“You don’t recognize me.”

Castiel takes in his features, the straight bridge of his nose, the strong jut of his chin, the pale blue eyes.  None of them are particularly striking, but Castiel is certain he’d remember the bright orange of his beard.

“I don’t.  Have we met before?”

The man shakes his head, wry grin curling his lips.  “You could say that.  You stole my Day.”

It takes Castiel a moment to understand, but when he does, the memories come to him like they'd been there all along.  Creatures, dreamed up from the sluggish depths of human fear proclaiming themselves gods for the little power they exert over the elements.  Hubris, by itself, would never register within the purview of angels, but then souls began to linger in Valhalla rather than their rightful place in Heaven.  It was the battle where Castiel took custodian of the fourth day.

“Thor.”

The man lifts his chin in affirmation and Castiel looks him over once more.  He can no longer see the truth of Thor.  Instead, all Castiel can perceive is this shell of skin and muscle and bone.  The stolen grace burns like a frozen blade stabbed through his core.

Thor watches him back, expression carefully neutral as he takes a drink from a water bottle, thin plastic crackling under his grip.  The anachronism shakes Castiel from his bitter revelation.

“Why are we here?”

Thor sets the bottle down against his log.  “Like I said, you took my Day.”

“As you took it from Jupiter before you,” Castiel points out.

Thor shrugs.  “Zeus is dead and I want it back.”

Castiel stiffens.  His hands curl inside the long sleeves of his tatty, blue robe.  He has nothing here, no blade, no grace, not even shoes.

“Relax,” Thor scoffs.  "I won't fight you in a dream."

“Oh,” Castiel says faintly.  He hadn’t even recognized the inside of his own mind.  His powers of perception are ticking away one by one.  He wonders what will go next.  “Then why this?”

“A declaration of intent,” Thor answers, standing to grab the end of the spit and lift the goat leg off the flame.  “To ensure a fair fight.”

Castiel grits his teeth.  There's no equity to be found here.  Castiel has been a strategist for many millennia, but even a child could see that this confrontation was deliberately timed to give Thor the advantage.

“You've been watching me."

“Of course I have,” Thor says with a chuckle as he tests the doneness of the meat with a carving knife.  “You angels haven't exactly been inconspicuous recently.  We’ve been watching you tear yourselves apart.  Your Father has fled, your brothers are divided, your apocalypse ended without taking the world with it.  Your times are dwindling, angel."

" _Your_ time ended long ago,” Castiel shoots back.  “Humans don't look backwards."

Thor shrugs.  "Perhaps, but there's a power vacuum that needs to be filled.  One day, there will be new gods, but until then, why not us?  Goat?”

Castiel stares at the dripping slice of meat Thor holds out at him speared on the end of his knife.  Even after all his time with the Winchesters, he still isn’t used to these non sequitors.

“I'm dying,” Castiel states simply in a final attempt to dissuade Thor.  "If you truly wanted a fair fight, you'd wait for one of my brothers to inherit my name.  You wouldn't have to wait long."

Thor doesn't bother to hide his disdain this time.  “Then I assume you already have your affairs in order.  You have until Thursday at sunrise.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Then I suggest you use your time wisely.”

“Wait, no,” Castiel calls out, but the woods are already gone, leaving only a creaky bed and a water-stained ceiling to greet his eyes.  His phone is buzzing hard enough to shake the entire nightstand.

“Sam.  Hello.”

Sam’s voice is a comfort.  It's also a reminder of everything he still has to do on this earth.  

“I have an idea on how to find Dean.”

Cas jerks upright and the motion makes something in his throat twitch and tighten, sending him into a fit of coughs.

“Cas?”

“I’m okay,” he says once the fit has subsided.  “How will you find Dean?”

“I don’t know, but one of the demons she was, I mean she was really freaked.  She says that Dean killed Crowley in Utah.”

Castiel is only faintly surprised by this news.  Crowley has never been anything more than an uneasy ally and Dean has certainly more than enough reason to despise the demon.  He doesn’t understand why Sam seems so unsettled.

“Isn’t that a good sign?”

“Yeah, but, you should have heard her.  She was scared out of her mind, Cas.  The way she describes it, it’s almost like,” Sam says and Castiel waits impatiently for him to get his words together.

“Like what, Sam?”

“Like he was a demon.”

Castiel sucks in a sharp breath that sends him into another round of coughing.

“Cas, are you sure you’re okay?”

No, he thinks, he is not _okay_.  How could he be when Lucifer's Mark may have turned Dean into a creature he fought thirty years to avoid becoming?

“Yes, Sam, I am alright,” Cas snaps.  He appreciates the concern, but they don't have time to waste on what is essentially a tantrum thrown by a frustrated vessel.  “You said you know how to find him?”

To his credit, Sam moves on quickly.  “Sort of.  It’s kind of roundabout, but since we’ve had no luck getting a bead on him, I thought we could go to someone who would.”

“Who?” Cas demands, a list of angels with that kind of power flashing through his mind, each dismissed faster than the last, either because they’re hostile or, more likely, dead.

“I figure if there’s one person who knows how to find a Knight of Hell, it’s the guy who created them.”

Lucifer’s name rushes to the forefront before Cas realizes Sam means someone much closer.  “Cain.”

“Yeah, except the only problem is that I don’t know where Cain is either,” Sam says, frustration palpable even through the phone.

But this is one problem that Castiel can actually fix.  The angels may have been absent from earth for the past few millennia, but they have always been excellent observers, and there are few figures on earth more worthy of tracking than the Father of Murder himself.

“I know where to find him.  We'll leave right away,” Cas manages to choke out before he succumbs to another fit of coughing.

“Cas, man.  It doesn’t sound you should be going anywhere right now.  You need to get some rest.”

“No,” Cas chokes out.  “Resting won’t do me any good, Sam.  My grace is dwindling.  I don’t know how long I have left.  I need to help you.”

His chest spasms and a wheezing gasp tries to escape from his throat, but he fights it down. Closing his eyes, Cas focuses on the interminable chore of inhaling and exhaling the precocious gases that fuel his farce of a body. 

Cas knows exactly how little time he has left, but Sam already has enough to worry about.  If Dean is really a demon or, even worse, a Knight of Hell, then finding him must be their first priority.  Telling Sam about his appointment with Thor will only serve as a distraction.  Besides, if Castiel only has one day to live, it’s fitting that his last act be to save Dean Winchester one final time.

On the other end of the line, Sam hesitates.

“Sam,” Cas pleads.  “It’s Dean.”

It only takes another moment for Sam to relent.  His sigh crackles through the speaker.

“Fine, but as soon as we get Dean back, we figure out a way to cure you.”

“Of course, Sam,” Cas agrees and tries not to think of it as deception.  After all, Sam can try, but as far as Castiel knows, there’s only one being who can cure dead angels, and he has a feeling that he has run out of favors from his Father.

 

* * *

 

_Springfield, Missouri_

 

Sam's life is strange.  There was a time when he thought he could escape to a normal job and a wife and a white picket fence, but that dream burned up on his dormitory ceiling.  He's done his best, since then, to accept the twists and turns as they come.  He's grown accustomed to finding the weirdest things in the most mundane places.  Still, he can't help but be a little disappointed.

“Cain, _the_ Cain, lives _here_?”  Sam peers out through the windshield at the white colonial backed by a shed full of bee hives.

Next to him, Cas is slumped against the window doing his best impression of a corpse.  It can never just be one thing with them.  No, Dean has to become a demon at the same time that Cas is basically dying in the passenger’s seat of a stolen Lincoln Continental.  Sam feels like an ass dragging Cas around, and he swears that as soon as this is over, they’re switching all focus to getting Cas back on his feet, but Dean is his _brother_.  That might not have always carried much weight for Sam, but right now it feel as heavy as the world.

“Yes.”  Cas blinks and swallows, then grimaces.  It hurts just to look at him.  “Or he did seven years ago.”

“Great,” Sam mutters and winces a little at how ungrateful he sounds.  “We need a plan.”

“We’ll go up to the door and knock,” Cas says, and before Sam can figure out exactly why that's a terrible idea, Cas is already out of the car and heading up the porch steps.

“Shit,” Sam mumbles to himself, fumbling with his seatbelt buckle in his hurry to follow.  “Wait, Cas!  We’re not ready!  We should draw some demon traps and get some salt and –”

The Father of Murder himself is staring him down from the open doorway.  He’s wearing a canvas apron covered in floury handprints and a pair of purple oven mitts.

“Um,” Sam says.

“Hello,” Castiel says, which really isn’t much better.

“Oh good,” Cain says, “now I’ve got the whole set.”

 

***

 

Cain serves them tea and Oreos because the scones aren’t ready yet.  It’s a pretty elaborate set-up.  He has a quaint little ceramic tea set.  There’s a bowl of sugar cubes, a piece of honey comb dripping with honey, a saucer of milk, and a mason jar filled with black smoke that glows faintly red at its center.  Sam can’t stop staring at it.  He tries to imagine what sort of weird demonic soup Cain might add to his tea but everything he comes up with is mildly terrifying, so he stops thinking about it.

Cain sits down across from them, sans apron, and pours himself a cup of tea.  Earl Gray, from the scent of bergamot.

“I can guess why you two are here," Cain says, stirring in a lump of sugar.  "You’re looking for your brother.”

Sam isn’t really surprised.  “Do you know where he is?”

Cain nods at the tea set.

“No thanks," Sam says.  "I had a coffee on the way here.”

“No, Sam,” Cain sighs, and then he nods at the tea set once again.

It takes Sam a moment.  It really says something about his set of life experiences that he understand at all.

“Oh my god.”  Sam clasps the mason jar in his hands, staring at the swirl of demon, of _Dean_ , trapped inside.  “What did you do to him?”

Next to him, Castiel shoots upright, only to sway unsteadily on his feet, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Sit down,” Cain commands, and Cas crashes back down onto the couch hard enough that Sam bounces a bit.  “I put him in time out for a little bit, just until he learns to control himself. You understand.”

Sam does not understand.  He’s holding his brother in a jar.  His brother who is now a demon.  It takes an embarrassingly long time before he tries to unscrew the lid, knuckles a stark white and red as he strains to open the jar, but the flimsy band of metal doesn’t move under his fingertips.

“Let him out!” Sam demands.

Cain takes a sip of tea.  “You wouldn’t like that.”

“Why not?” Cas growls, still pinned down against the cushions by whatever force Cain is exuding.  Either Cas is really getting down to the dregs of his rancid grace or Cain has some sort of super strength that can overpower even an angel.  Sam isn’t sure which is worse.

“Dean is very angry right now.”

“You have him trapped in a jar!” Sam points out.

Cain doesn’t look impressed.  “Come on, Sam.  I heard you were the smart one.  I think you can figure this one out.”

Sam looks down helplessly at his brother.  “It’s the Mark, isn’t it?”

“That’s part of it,” Cain says.  “But the Mark isn’t enough on its own.  All it does is magnify what’s already there, but Dean has plenty to magnify.”

“What did you do with his body?” Cas asks and there’s that gut-punch feeling again.  Sam hadn’t even considered that.  Dean’s body could be lying in a ditch somewhere in the middle of nowhere getting devoured by wolves or bears or wendigos.

“Sleeping, upstairs,” Cain says, and Sam lets out a breath of relief.  “He’ll be fine once he learns to control his temper, so you two can go now.”

“We aren’t leaving him here,” Cas snarls.

“Yeah, no way,” Sam adds, clutching the jar to his chest.

“I don’t think you two understand.”  Cain sets his cup down with a definitive click.  “I’m not asking.”

Sam sucks in a sharp breath and holds Dean even tighter.  “No, I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.  We’re not leaving him here with you.”

Cain stands up.  Some piece of Sam’s brain is questioning how someone born thousands of years ago could be almost as tall as Sam himself while the other part is frantically telling that part to shut the hell up and figure out a way to get them out of here, preferably in one piece.

Cain takes a deep, calming breath.  “I know you two think that you’re helping, but you’re not.  Anger doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  It has to stem from some place.”

That stings.  Sam knows that he’s pulled some crap in his life and he’s sorry, so freaking sorry, but now isn’t the time to wallow in his own guilt.  He stands up himself, a little surprised that Cain lets him.

“In that case, you should know that Cas and I aren’t leaving here without a fight, and if there’s one sure way to piss Dean off, it’s watching his family get hurt.”

Cain grits his teeth, eyes narrowing.  Sam’s pretty sure that those were his famous last words.  Cain is going to snap his fingers and turn him into mince meat.  Sam just hopes that Cas makes it out of here alive.  He’s already been exploded too many times on the Winchester’s behalf.

But then Cain is closing his eyes, counting faintly under his breath, one through ten.  When he looks at Sam again, the anger is gone.

“Fine,” Cain concedes.  “Stay, but don’t do anything stupid.  Now, if you excuse me, I have to check on my scones.”

Sam looks down at Dean in his jar, at Cas slumping down against the couch, and wonders how they’re going to get out of this one.

 

***

 

Dean glowers.  It's different without a body.  His emotions come immediate and unhindered, but at the same time they feel more distant.  He can't get used to it.  Even in Hell, when his flesh and blood lay rotting in a corpse in a pine box on a different plane, he had a semblance of form.  He had skin to split, blood vessels to burst, and bones to break.  Alistair made sure of that.

When Cain pulled him out of his body and into this jar, he'd set him in front of a mirror for two days and he saw himself.  He saw the dark, murky essence that was Dean Winchester and he seethed.

"Good," Cain had said.  "This is the first step.  Let go of that hatred.  You can blame me or your brother or Lucifer himself, but you are what you are now and there's no going back."

Easier said than done.

He doesn't blame Cain and he definitely doesn't blame Sam.  He made every single one of the choices that led him here.  They're his mistakes and his alone.  If he had to put the blame on someone else, he'd finger the head douche-in-charge.  God set all this up for failure, put it all in motion, doomed them all from the moment they were born.  And Dean?  He fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

So no, he can't just let it go.  There's no forgiveness to be had, but there are other things.  Retribution.  Making things right.  But he can't do that while he's stuck here in this cage, suffocating.  The jar just squeezes him tighter. 

 

***

 

“I’m sorry.”  Castiel wraps his palms around the base of the jar.  “For everything.”

They’re the wrong words.  He’s said them before and Dean hadn’t liked them.  He starts over.

“Bartholomew is dead.  I – I killed him.  Gadreel sacrificed himself to help me.  Metatron has been imprisoned.  The angels have gone back to Heaven.  I know that doesn’t make up for all my mistakes, but Hannah and the others agree that they will no longer interfere with the affairs of humanity.”

Dean swirls inside the jar and Castiel can’t be sure if he’s even listening.  Still, he presses on.

“I am trying to atone, but I’m afraid I am running out of time.  I’ll be dead soon.”

Saying the words out loud puts a lump in Castiel’s throat that can’t be coughed away.  He may very well deserve this death, but a part of him, at least, wishes it weren’t so.

“There are hard times coming.  I’ve written down what I know and I hid the manuscript in the glove compartment of my car.  I’m sorry I won’t be there to help.”

He swallows, throat dry and scratchy. 

“I want to do one last, good thing before I die.  I will save you, Dean Winchester.  Saving you, helping you, _knowing_ you has been the only thing in my existence that I could never regret.”

Castiel doesn’t know how this turned from an apology into a confession, but he thinks it’s something he needed to say.  It’s a scene repeated in countless stories.  One final farewell.

“We’ll get you out of here,” he murmurs.

Castiel traces a finger down the side of the jar.  It feels like ordinary glass, like any of the jars holding tomato sauce on the shelves of the Gas’n’Sip.    He should be able to open it with a quick twist of the wrist or, failing that, a sharp tap of the lid against a counter.  He tries it, out of curiosity, but it doesn’t budge.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Cain warns and Castiel nearly drops Dean.  “For a creature that was made to obey, you aren’t very good at following directions.”

“I thought you were feeding the chickens.”

“I was and now I’m done.”  Cain tosses his gloves into a drawer.  “Where’s Sam?”

“He’s upstairs checking on Dean’s body.”

Cain raises an eyebrow.  “He’s been doing that pretty often.”

“He’s very protective of his brother,” Castiel says.  He doesn’t say that Sam has been injecting Dean with the cure.  It might not work on a Knight of Hell, or one that isn’t even in his body at the time, but they still can’t risk the demon trying to stop them.

Cain hums and wanders over to take the seat across from Castiel, watching him carefully.  Castiel watches him right back. 

“I understand why Sam is here,” Cain says, “but you I don’t get.”

Castiel sets the jar carefully on the table.  “Dean’s my friend.  Friends help each other.”

“But do friends die for each other?”

“Yes,” Castiel says without hesitation.

“He would kill you, you know, if he were in his body right now.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Cain leans back, contemplative now.  Castiel doesn’t really care what the demon thinks of him as long as he doesn’t hurt Sam or Dean.

“Why are _you_ doing this?” he asks, turning the question around.

Cain picks up a coaster made of woven twine, turning it round and round under his fingers.  “I made a promise once, to a _friend_.”

Castiel narrows his eyes.  He doesn’t miss the emphasis, but he doesn’t know what it means.

Cain continues.  “No more killing.  That’s why Abaddon has been allowed to roam free for so long, but that was a mistake.  I created her.  When she takes a life, it’s no different than if I had myself.  I’m not going to repeat that mistake.”

It sounds noble, but Castiel has been taken in more than once by noble words hiding malicious intent.  He isn’t about to be fooled so easily again, especially by someone who has essentially taken them all prisoner.

Sam comes thumping down the stairs, and in that moment of distraction, Cain sweeps Dean up into his arms.

“I think I’m going to take Dean to watch the bees now.  I find it to be very calming.”

“What was that about?” Sam asks after Cain has left the room.

“I don’t know, but I asked him why he was doing this and he told me it was because he made a promise to a _friend_ not to kill anymore.”

“A friend?  What kind of friends could make a demon stop killing?”

“I don’t know, but maybe they can help us now.”

Sam nods.  “Alright.  I didn’t find anything upstairs, but we should probably still search the grounds.  Will you –”

“I’ll watch over him.”

 

* * *

 

Dean seethes.  That dick is planning on leaving again.  By dying.  Again.  He’s changed his mind.  He isn’t going to kill Cas, he’s going to trap that flighty fucker.  It’s a shame Cas doesn’t have his wings anymore or Dean would pin him down like one of those butterfly specimens.  Maybe he’ll find Cas a nice little mason jar instead.  If Cain can do it, Dean can too.  After all, once Cain is dead, the Mark will be all his.

 

* * *

 

 

It starts to rain almost as soon as Sam steps out of the house after dinner.  He sighs.  At least it’s only a drizzle, barely enough to get his hair wet.  He heads out into the mist with a flashlight and his knife.

It’s a decision he regrets an hour later when the drizzle has steadily built up into a proper storm.  The remaining daylight is swallowed by dark clouds and solid sheets of water that make it impossible to see more than a foot in front of him.    His flashlight is all but useless, but the occasional flash of lightning lights up the world in eerie black and white.  It’s just enough to keep him from tripping over the headstone.

Sam falls to his knees besides it, lifting his jacket over his head and shining the light at its stone face to read the words carved into its worn surface.

 

_Colette Mullen_

_Died 1863_

_Aged 31 Years_

_To Live in the Hearts of Those We Love is Not to Die_

 

Fifty years is a long time and Sam has seen graves lost in less time, but on closer inspection this one is still well kept.  Despite being in the middle of nowhere, the stone is clean and the grass is short.

Sam reads the name to himself a few times so he’ll remember it later.

“Who are you, Colette?”

 

* * *

 

Castiel’s time is running short.

Cain goes around the house making sure the windows are closed against the storm.  It is one of the few times where he leaves Dean behind.  Castiel turns the jar over in his hands.  There are no visible markings except the Ball Mason logo printed across the lid and raised against the glass side.  Cain must be using his powers alone to keep Dean inside.  Castiel wonders how much concentration that would require and what it would take to break it.  Even if he could free Dean, what then?  Dean would still be a demon and they would have no way of containing him long enough to get him into the bunker’s dungeon.  If Dean is as angry as Cain says, he could hurt someone.  Sam has administered the cure twice now, but there’s no visible change in either Dean’s body or his soul. 

Castiel wishes he could hear Dean, could speak to him and have him speak back.  As it is, he has no idea what reaction Dean has to his words.  His apologies could be falling on deaf ears.  It pains him to think that these will be his last interactions with Dean – himself all but fallen and Dean all but unrecognizable as the brilliant soul he once pulled from Hell.

“When you’re returned to yourself,” Cas says, and there is no question in his mind that Sam will get his brother back, even without Castiel’s help, “talk to Sam.  In some ways, he is stronger than either of us.  You might not think he wouldn’t understand, but Sam has been through as much as you and me.  Even if the situations are not identical, Sam will be able to empathize.  He’s your brother and he loves you very much.  He will forgive you for anything you think you have done wrong.”

Castiel swallows and closes his eyes against a wave of nausea.  It takes a minute of steady breathing before he can speak again.

“I know that none of this may mean anything to you right now, but you have to remember.  No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve become, you deserve to be saved, Dean.  You deserve happiness.  You deserve peace.  I only wish I could be the one to give that to you.”

Dean remains silent.

The front door slams open, letting in a gust of wind and rain before Sam managed to wrestle it closed again.  He strips out of his jacket and shakes his head, sending water splattering across the tiled floor.

“This weather is insane,” Sam grumbles as he unbuttons his overshirt.

Castiel considers telling him everything, about Thor and his upcoming deadline, but decides against it.  There is nothing Sam can do against a god on such short notice, especially not when they’re all essentially trapped here.  They aren’t going to leave without both Dean’s body and his soul and Cain has more than sufficient power to prevent that from happening. 

“Did you find anything?”

Sam shakes out his shirt and wrings as much water as he can out of his tee.

“Maybe.  No sign of the blade, but does the name Colette Mullen mean anything to you?”

Castiel shakes his head.  “Why?”

“I found a gravestone.  It seemed pretty well-kempt.”

“That name is not one that was spoken in Heaven.  If she has any significance, it must be only to Cain himself.”

Sam sighs.  “That might be useful anyway, though I don’t really see how.  How are you holding up?”

Castiel tries to sit up a little straighter.  “I’m experiencing some nausea, but the coughing seems to have stopped.”

“That’s good, right?"

“I suppose.”  Castiel feels a twinge of guilt for giving Sam false hope.

Sam hovers next to them for a second, eyes barely glancing at his brother before skittering away.  “Okay, I’m going to grab a change of clothes and then I’ll give him the next dose.”

“Sam,” Castiel says, stopping him.  “Would you like to take Dean with you?”

Sam looks faintly sick at the suggestion.  “No,” he says quickly.  “No, I don’t – he should stay with you.  I’m, um, I’m probably going to shower, too, so, yeah.  You keep him.”

Castiel watches Sam walk away.  He knows it must be hard for Dean to recognize the twist of darkness as his brother.  To him, Dean must look like any of the other demons that destroyed his family, his friends, his entire life.  But he’s going to need to get over that revulsion and soon.  They’re going to need each other to get past this.

 

* * *

 

The sun doesn’t actually rise in the morning.  The cloud cover is so thick that it may as well be perpetual night, but Castiel knows when his time is up.  He lifts himself off the couch, where Sam insisted he rest, but Castiel hasn’t slept at all.  He spent his night preparing.  Sam himself is sleeping on the rug, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his jacket balled up under his head.  Under the jacket is a letter that Cas wrote last night, explaining where he has gone and what has happened, warning Sam about the newest supernatural power grab and telling him about the notes hidden in the glove compartment.

Castiel shuffles around Sam’s sleeping form, careful not to wake him.  He climbs the stairs slowly, laboriously.  It’s difficult to stay upright without swaying, but he manages to make it to the second story.  There is no light coming from under the door where Cain had locked himself and Dean last night, but Castiel knows that the demon doesn’t sleep.  He bypasses the room quietly and heads to the one next door.  Dean’s body is peaceful, but empty.  It’s nothing but a shell, but this is the body that Castiel rebuilt back when he was at the height of his own glory, newly victorious after a forty year battle through Hell.  He trails his fingers across Dean’s face, tracing his lashes, his nose, his lips.  Dean isn’t always expressive with his words, choosing obfuscation and misdirection over emotional dialogue, but he shows so much with this face, and Castiel has come to love it as well.

He places his palm over Dean’s shoulder, where his mark once stood.

“Goodbye,” he says, for the last time.

Castiel heads out to his fate.

 

* * *

 

Cain is going on and on about inner peace and tranquility and other bullshit, but Dean isn’t listening.  There’s something going on outside, something big.  Either Cain hasn’t noticed yet or he doesn’t care.  Dean’s putting his bets on the latter, but just because Cain is too busy reciting personal mantras to give a shit doesn’t mean that Dean has to close his eyes and stick his fingers in his ears.  Figuratively speaking. 

Whatever’s out there is getting closer.  It’s powerful, too.  Not Lucifer or Death or even Lilith powerful, but definitely more than the average vamp or werewolf.  Still, Dean’s pretty sure he could take it.  It’s coming for someone in this house, and he really hopes that it’s him.  He could use a good fight.

 

* * *

 

“Hello Thor.”

“Castiel.”

The storm whirls around them, but out of courtesy or arrogance, Thor has kept the patch of land they stand on dry and still.

“Would you like to say anything?  A grand speech for song and legend?” Thor asks.  Castiel can’t tell if he’s mocking him, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.

“No.”

“Then let’s begin.”

Castiel lets his angel blade fall from his sleeve into his hand.  Thor seems surprised to see it.

“You must know that you have no hope of winning,” Thor says, clearly amused now.

“I know.”  His fingers feel bloated and lethargic and his head spins just from standing here.  Still, he isn’t going to allow Thor to simply execute him like a lamb at slaughter. 

“Alright, then.  Foolish, but I admire your fortitude.”

The rain hits him like a fist, and Castiel just manages to stay upright.

“Still, honor isn’t going to save you now.”

Castiel wipes the hair out of his eyes and peers at Thor through the rain.

“No, not honor.”

The lightning strikes from the sky without warning.  If he had his wings, it would be nothing to dodge it, but Castiel can only move as fast as his legs can take him now.  He doesn’t move an inch.  It doesn’t make a difference, the lightning strikes ten feet to his left.

Castiel watches Thor’s eyes narrow.

The next strike is closer, five feet behind, and the force of it sends Castiel to his knees, but all that matters is that it doesn’t hit him. 

“What is this?” Thor demands, voice booming like thunder over the din of the storm.

“Copper and aluminum.”  Objects he had found around Cain’s home.  “Etched with cationic runes.  I know where they’re buried.  You don’t.  Careful or you’ll end up hitting yourself.”

Thor laughs and the storm abates slightly.  “Not so foolish then, little angel.  No matter.  My fists are more than enough to finish you off.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Castiel murmurs and climbs to his feet.

Thor is big and strong, three-quarters a giant and one-quarter a god.  He isn’t known for his speed, but he’s still faster than Castiel.  The spark of stolen grace inside him keeps him alive, allows him to weather the blows that he can’t dodge or block.  He doesn’t even try to strike back.  Castiel knows he only has one shot at survival and it’s a long one at that.

A right jab.  A left upper-cut.  And there.  An opening.

Castiel takes the hit to his shoulder and using the momentum to spin in towards Thor, ducking his follow-up blow until he’s right up in his personal space before slipping the syringe from his pocket.  A quick jab is all it takes to sink the needle right into Thor’s chest.

The god screams, a clap of thunder hitting inches from Castiel’s face.  He feels his eardrums rupture and slowly, painfully mend.  By the time he can hear again, Thor has stumbled away and plucked the syringe from his chest.

“Poison?” Thor asks, pulling his collar down to stare at the puncture mark.

“Apitoxin.  The man who lives here collects it.”

“ _Bee venom_?”  Thor chokes out a laugh.  The skin around the puncture site is already red and swollen.  “You couldn’t spring for snake?”

Castiel shrugs and the movement pulls at a dozen different bruises and cuts that aren’t healing.  “It was the best I could do on short notice.”

“It actually stings,” Thor says incredulously, rubbing the spot with his palm.  He looks up and there’s pity in his gaze.  “But it’s a far cry from Jormungandr.”

Castiel swallows.  It was a long shot, but it was his last, fleeting hope.  He’s going to die.  Dean is still a demon trapped in a jar.  The Grecian deities are planning on a hostile takeover.  Heaven is barely teetering by.  And Castiel is going to die.  He is going to die with regrets, with unfinished business.  If he were human, his soul would linger here, tied to his blade or his car or his trenchcoat, but the only thing still running this stolen body is a dwindling ember of stolen grace.  Castiel has nothing left to leave behind.

Thor comes at him as strong as before, but Castiel flags.  His movements get slower, more laborious, more painful, until he finds himself flat on the ground, squinting against the stinging rain.  Thor looms above him, lightning crackling under his skin. 

And the last thing Castiel sees is black.

 

* * *

 

Dean used to joke that Sam could sleep through anything from fireworks to action movies to smoke alarms.  He definitely doesn’t expect to be startled awake by a storm, but the clap of thunder that rouses him is so loud that it seems to have come from the front porch.

Sam is grateful that he decided to sleep in his clothes last night, but he doesn’t have any shoes on when he flings open the front door to the sight of Castiel facing off with a giant of a man in the pounding rain.  He doesn’t hear Cain coming down the stairs behind him, but one moment he’s by himself and the next, the demon is right beside him, jar in hand.

“What is going on?” Cain demands, pushing past Sam and onto the porch.

“I have no idea.”

The two in the rain haven’t noticed them.  They’re talking.  Sam can’t hear a word, but Cas has his angel blade out.  It’s not like anyone would be having a friendly chat in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Sam takes a step off the porch, but Cain stops him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?”

Cain nods at the man that Sam doesn’t recognize.  “He’s not human.  Pagan god, most likely.”

The words are barely out of Cain’s mouth when the man starts to glow, electricity crackling under his skin.  Sam watches in horror as Cas takes a blow to the gut, followed by a jab to the nose that leaves his face bloody. 

“Cas!” Sam shouts, rushing forward despite Cain’s warning, but the rain and wind physically push him back.  He stumbles, foot catching on the lowest step, and lands on his back.  Cain glances down at him, uninterested.

“Do something!” Sam demands, clambering back to his feet.

“This isn’t my fight.”  Cain purses his lips.  “I think this will be a valuable lesson for Dean.  He needs to learn to quiet his emotions even under the most stressful conditions.”

Sam gapes at him.  “If you know anything about my brother, you’d know that watching his friends die, watching _Cas_ die, will do anything but make him _calm down_.”

Cain shrugs.  “He’ll learn.”

Sam swallows and pulls his phone from out of his pocket.  “Okay,” he says, breathing slowly.  “You want to teach, then teach by example.  There’s ten pounds of C4 strapped to Colette’s gravestone.  I press this button to start the timer and you have three minutes to stop it.  I press it again, it blows immediately.”

Cain narrows his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t show any emotion.  “I’m not an idiot, Sam.  I know that’s just a cell phone, not a detonator.”

Sam tilts his head.  “You’re right, but did you know that you can send texts to computers now?  That’s as good as any detonator.  I’m the smart one, remember?”

“You’re bluffing,” Cain counters.

“You sure about that?” 

Cain hesitates and that’s all Sam needs.  He presses the send button.

“Leave Dean here or she’s gone forever.”

Sam can feel each second slogging by as he faces off with the First Knight.  He can only hope his poker face is as good as he thinks it is.  Cain runs.  The Mason jar rattles as it teeters on the porch rail.  Sam casts a quick glance out into the rain as he grabs his brother.  Cas is on the ground now, the red-haired man standing over him, crackling with energy.  Sam doesn’t wait to see what happens.

“That better still be you in there, Dean,” Sam says and raises the jar above his head before striking it down against the ground.  The glass shatters and Dean explodes from his confines.  For a moment the demon hovers over him and Sam thinks that Cain was right after all, that his brother is going to kill him, but then the smoke streams off the porch, completely unaffected by the rain.  Sam watches, breath caught in his throat, as Dean swirls in a billowing cloud around Cas as his opponent.  Then, he starts starts shrinking.  The smoke is all but gone by the time Sam realizes what’s happening.

And then there’s really only one word to summarize the situation.

“Fuck.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel blinks through the rain.  The darkness is gone and Thor is still standing there, stock still, head tilted up towards the sky.  Castiel’s fingers slip through the muddy earth, searching for his blade.  He doesn’t know why Thor has stopped, but he’s not going to waste this reprieve.  His right hand closes around the familiar grip and Cas rolls himself over onto his stomach.  One of his legs is broken.  The other has a shattered knee.  He doesn’t even try to stand up, but he can drag himself along the ground, slipping over the wet grass towards the driveway.  If he can get to the car, he might be able to run and then – well, he hadn’t planned that far ahead.  He’d assumed he’d be dead by now. 

Everything movement hurts.  A sharp, stabbing pain rips through his side with each breath.  There’s blood clouding the vision in his left eye.  And he’s so cold.  He never thought he’d feel cold again, but there it is, leeching the life from his bones.  He can’t feel his fingers anymore.  He’d almost believe they weren’t there if he couldn’t see them swimming in front of him.  And it’s raining so hard that he’s afraid he’ll drown if he stops moving.  Castiel inches forward.  This is nothing, he tells himself, compared to the horrors of hell, when he was besieged by demons on all sides for forty years.  This is nothing, he thinks, compared to his dismemberment, cell by cell, atom by atom, by his heavenly brothers.  This is nothing, he repeats, compared to the methodic reprogramming wrought in Naomi’s chair. 

He hits tarmac, and for one, brief moment, he feels relief.

But then someone grabs him by the back of his coat and drags him upright.  Castiel cries out as his weight settles on his broken bones before he collapses back on the ground.  He realizes, belatedly, that the rain has stopped.

Thor steps over him.

Except it isn’t Thor.

Black eyes stare out from an otherwise impassive face.

“Dean?”

A muscle in Thor’s brow twitches and a raindrop falls on Castiel’s face.

“Is that – is that you?  Dean?”

The sky splits open and the rain starts again.  Lightning crackles distantly in the clouds overhead.  Thor – or Dean – is frowning at a spot just over Castiel’s shoulder.  He’s never heard of a demon possessing a pagan god before, but Dean isn’t just an ordinary demon.  They must be raging some kind of battle inside his head.  Either that or Dean has already won and is struggling to control a vessel that isn’t meant to be his.

“Can you hear me?”

Castiel drags himself backwards, away from the looming figure.  He doesn’t move, black eyes staring unblinkingly at the same spot, even after Castiel has moved away.  A streak of lightning flashes across the sky behind him.  The thunder follows a few seconds later.  Thor’s face breaks into a menacing grin.  Another bolt strikes, and the thunder rumbles past quicker this time.

“Dean, don’t do this.”

Dean takes a step forward.  A tree falls in the copse just on the other side of the driveway.  The air around them practically crackles with static electricity.  Castiel can feel it even through the rain.

“Dean, please.”

The next strike lands square on the roof of the Lincoln and Castiel winces.  Still, he can’t help but take it as a sign that Dean is still in there somewhere.  He never did like that car.

Dean takes another step forward and Castiel is truly desperate now.  There’s a copper plate buried between them, a mere foot in front of Dean.  If he takes another step, he’ll be right on top of it.

“You need to stop!”

Dean doesn’t listen to him, but then again, he never has.  He takes the step.  The storm clouds circle slowly overhead and Castiel knows it’s going to happen, even without his angelic senses.  A hundred million volts are going to streak out of the sky and land squarely on Dean. 

He doesn’t even need to think about it.  It’s a reaction that even Naomi couldn’t wipe from him.  Castiel lunges.  He feels his shoulder collide with Dean’s knees, sees him stagger backwards.  He doesn’t feel it when the lightning strikes.  He doesn’t feel anything.

 

* * *

 

The flash of lightning is blinding.  It strikes so close that it sends Sam stumbling backwards into the side of the house.  The windows rattle and the floorboards shake and for a few long, agonizing minutes, he can’t see or hear a thing.

When he finally blinks away the bright spots obscuring his vision, the storm has stopped.  The skies are as bare as a baby’s bottom, and Sam could almost believe there was never a storm at all except the vegetation is drenched and drooping.  In the middle of Cain’s lawn, Dean and Cas are huddled together, drenched in mud.  Dean, because that could only be his brother now, despite the unfamiliar face he wore, has Cas cradled in his arms. 

Sam swallows hard and takes a tentative step off the porch.  His bare toes squelch in the cool mud and his skin tingles like there’s residual static left in the air.  The god is gone, but whatever powers he had are now trapped in the same body as Sam’s brother.

Dean has been there for Sam’s whole life, the one constant that never upped and disappeared like Dad or was left behind in the Impala’s rearview window.  Still, Sam can’t say that he really _knows_ Dean.  For a long time, Dean was a larger than life, the Big Damn Hero stepped right out of the pages of comic books and Saturday morning cartoons.  Dean was who Sam wanted to grow up to be, never Dad.  But then Sam did grow up and he ended up more like John than he cared to admit and Dean was the one disappeared in the rearview window of a Greyhound bus.

In that way, Dean was more like a parent to Sam than anything else.  At some point, he stopped being just a pair of strong arms and a comforting presence and morphed into a real live person with flaws and blemishes and concerns that extended beyond his little brother.  Sam’s been peeling back the layers for the last few years, really learning who his brother is rather than who he pretends to be.  Sometimes, though, it seems like the more Sam reveals, the more Dean moves to hide.

Cas is one of those shadowy bits.  He’s Sam’s friend, but his relationship with Dean always seemed more complicated than that.  It was the way they looked at each other like they were the only two people in the room.  It was the way that Dean never really seemed to like Cas but stuck to him like glue.  It was the way that Cas seemed to like Dean a little bit _too_ much.

It’s the way Dean holds Cas now, propped up on his side, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other carefully pressed under the black hole burned through the back of Castiel’s familiar tan coat.

“Dean?” Sam says.  When he gets closer, close enough to hear the soft whisper, he’s never heard his brother sound so lost.

“I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  Please, Cas, just come back.  You always come back.  I’m so sorry.”

“Is he –”  The word catches in Sam’s throat.  He frantically tries to remember what he knows about lightning strikes, about the emergency preparedness presentations that tapered off after middle school.  People live after getting hit by lightning and Cas isn’t even fully people.  That has to count for something.

Sam stands awkwardly next to them.  His hand is on his phone and he’s half considering calling nine-one-one to get them an ambulance when Dean finally looks up.  His eyes are still black, fathomless, and his gaze locks on something far away.  Sam spins around, expecting to see Cain’s return, but there’s nothing there, just a ragged tree line.

“What is it?” he asks, but his brother ignores him.

“You can’t take him,” Dean says, his voice hoarse.  Reaper, Sam thinks, which isn’t good news for the state of Cas’ immortality.

Static builds up in the air around them, and when Dean speaks again, there’s thunder behind his words.  “Because I won’t let you!”

Sam takes a step back, mindful of the fact that there’re magical lightning rods hidden under his feet and he doesn’t want to be on top of when the fight breaks out.  But then the charge vanishes and Dean sinks back onto his heels.  It gives Sam an idea.

“Reapers don’t take orders from demons,” he says, mostly to himself.  “Dean, you have to tell me what you saw.”

He’s met with silence.  Dean doesn’t even look at him.

“Dean, please!  I need to know what that was.  I know you’re pissed at me or whatever, but this is important.  We can save Cas.”

At that, his brother’s eyes finally snap to him, beetle black and depthless.  His spits out the word like a wad of old tobacco.  “Valkyrie.”

“Thor,” Sam says, excited.  “God, Dean.  That’s _Thor_.  You’re possessing _Thor_.”

“Who the fuck cares?” Dean snarls, but Sam just rolls right past.  He might not understand his brother, but he knows how to handle him, and sometimes it’s just best to ignore him.

“Thor isn’t just the Norse god of lightning and thunder.  He’s the god of _healing_ , too.  Dean, you can fix him.  You can heal Cas!”

Dean’s always making fun of him for spending his free time reading irrelevant lore, but look at them now.  When his brother is back to himself, Sam is so going to be rubbing his in his face for all eternity.

Dean doesn’t look nearly as excited about the revelation.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Dean’s black eyes flick up at him and it’s just as disconcerting as the first time.

“Yeah, I’ll just heal him and everything will be alright.”

Sam doesn’t see the problem here.  “Yes?"

“Tell me, Sam.”  And it is weird as hell hearing his brother say his name with a different voice.  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Um.”  Between the two of them, Sam is the one who’s had some experience with powers, and it took months for him to get a hold of them.  He doesn’t think they have that kind of time now.  “Maybe try what Cas does with the finger thing?”

He holds out two fingers like he’s seen the angel do a dozen times and Dean looks at him like he’s crazy, but he doesn’t say anything snappy and sarcastic.  Instead he looks down, considering for a moment, before laying his entire palm against the side of Cas’ face.

“Come on, you dumb bastard,” Dean mutters, and Sam pretends he doesn’t hear his voice break.  “You didn’t even explode this time, so just come back, okay?  Come back.”

His voice tapers off so low that Sam barely hears the last two words.

“To me.”

There’s a moment when nothing happens, but then a clap of thunder cracks from between them and Castiel’s eyes fly open. 

“Dean.”

And they’re doing that thing again where they stare at each other like Sam isn’t even there.  Except this time, he thinks he probably shouldn’t be.

Sam makes his stealthy escape like the fantastic brother he is and squelches back towards the house, more than ready to wash off the mud and get into some dry clothes.  He wipes off as much grime as he can on the porch before heading inside, and he’s so intent on getting into the shower that he almost walks right by the kitchen.  And Cain.

He’s sitting at the table, sipping on a cup of tea.  The headstone is sitting next to him.  Sam freezes.

“Sam,” Cain says, calm as anything.

Sam glances back at the door.  He still isn’t wearing any shoes.

“Take a seat,” Cain offers, gesturing at one of the empty chairs.

Sam figures he might as well be straight forward about this.  “Are you going to kill me?”

“Trust me,” Cain says flatly, “you aren’t worth it.”

Sam cautiously slides the chair out and perches on the edge as Cain pours him a steaming mug of tea. 

“Thanks,” he says tentatively.

“Actually, I should be thanking _you_ ,” Cain says, raising his cup at Sam.  “You solved my little problem for me.”  He glances out the window where Dean and Cas are still wrapped up together. 

“Oh, uh, you’re not mad about that.”

“I don’t get mad, Sam.  I used to, but I’ve changed.”

Sam thinks about it for a second before asking, “Yeah, how did that happen?”

“I found someone worth changing for.”

“Colette?”

Cain nods.

Sam squirms in his seat.  His clothes are still soaked and his waistband is starting to chafe.  If Cain has a point, he hopes he gets to it soon.

“Killing my brother was the beginning of my descent.  Killing Colette was the end of it,” Cain says.  “Dean has managed to avoid doing either.”

A small glow of smug satisfaction rests in Sam’s chest. 

“I’ve always wondered,” Cain continues, “what would have happened to my brother if he’d lived.  Tell me, Sam, what do you plan to do with your life?”

It’s a question he hasn’t heard since tenth grade health class when the gym teacher in charge gave them all aptitude tests to determine what career path most suited them.  Sam doesn’t remember what he ended up with, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t “monster hunter.”  Everyone else in his life just assumed, Sam was going to be a lawyer, a hunter, a handyman, but Cain looks generally interested, like Sam’s answer might affect the lost fate of Abel.  Geez, Sam thinks.  He’s sitting here drinking tea with _Cain_ , talking about what his life is going to be and he genuinely has no answer.  He’s gone through so many ups and downs in the past few years, times when he wanted nothing more to get out, whether by running away or dying, and times when he had accepted the fact that he was going to die with his hand on a gun and probably some sort of monster goop in his hair.

He catches a glimpse of Dean and Cas curled together on the wet ground and it hits him.  That’s what he wants.  He wants to find someone who knows all the dirty, disgusting corners of his past and loves him for it all the more.  He’s been making the same mistake, over and over again, the same mistake his mom made.  This life, it doesn’t let people go, ever, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find some sort of compromise.

Sam turns to Cain and smiles.  “I’m alive because my brother made different choices than you, and believe me, I am grateful, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.  I just know that I am going to _live_.”

 

* * *

 

 The sky darkens, clouds rushing in from the west to obscure the sky.

“You are not putting me in the trunk.”

Neither Sam nor Cas are impressed.  Dean groans.  What’s the point of awesome weather-controlling powers if no one is going to appreciate them?

“Fine, then you can babysit yourself in the backseat,” Sam says.

“Hell, no!  Cas, tell him I get shotgun.”

Castiel rolls his eyes at both of them, the dramatic little shit.  “Neither of you get shotgun.  Your body will sit up front with me and the two of you can share the backseat.”

“But Cas!” Dean says, definitely not whining.

“I have long legs!” Sam says, definitely whining.

“It’s my car,” Cas declares haughtily.  “I get to make the rules.”

“I wonder who taught him that,” Sam says loudly and obnoxiously as they both squeeze into the back, jostling each other with their shoulders and knees.

“Oh, shut your mouth,” Dean says, but he isn’t really mad.  The anger’s still there, pulsing hot and heavy at the back of his mind, but he ignores it.  He has to.  Every time it threatens to take over, he just thinks about Cas’ dead eyes staring up at him from the cold ground and the moment of pure grief that swept the anger away.  It’s like drenching himself in ice water to put out a flame.  It’s something that he’s just going to have to deal with for the rest of his life, which could be a very long time, but he has other problems to deal with right now.

Cas is up and running again, but Thor’s happy juice is only a band-aid.  Speaking of which, apparently there’s also a whole new pantheon looking to overrun the earth, which Cas neglected to tell either of them about, the cagey bastard.  It means that Dean’s stuck in this new suit until they can figure out a way to neutralize a whole new breed of religious dick.  On top of _that_ there’s Cain.  One day Dean’s going to have to pick up the First Blade again and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to control himself when he does.

Until then, he’s got a crappy ride, a too-big little brother, and a semi-angelic _something_ to accompany him into the sunset.   

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: Christian missionaries cut down a tree dedicated to Thor and used it to build a church in Hesse, Germany.
> 
> Fun Fact 2: Lightning strikes because of the electric field built up between the negative lower layer of storm clouds and the positively charged surface of the earth (positively charged because of electron repulsion from the clouds). Conductive metal objects have zero effect on where lightning will strike due to sheer size differential. Lightning rods work by giving lightning an alternate route to the ground to the building that the lightning was going to strike anyways. Taller buildings are struck more often because they more often get in the way between the lightning and the ground, not because lightning is attracted to them. "Cationic" just means positively charged.


End file.
